Marseille customs seized a total of 1.7 tonnes of cocaine in 2022, during four operations carried out at the port of France’s second city, “unheard of”, its regional director, Jean-Philippe Vigot, said on Wednesday. .
“The port of Marseille is no longer spared by the massive arrivals of products”, in particular cocaine, “like what is done in particular to the harbor or, on a much larger scale, in Antwerp (Belgium) or Rotterdam (Netherlands) for the ports of Northern Europe”, he detailed during a press briefing.
More than 500 kilos of cocaine were thus discovered at the end of January on a ship from Chile before a total of 1.2 tonnes of cocaine, concealed in moving containers from Martinique, were uncovered over the course of three separate seizures during the summer, including a historic catch of more than 600 kilos for Marseille customs.
Le Have “victim of its success” with criminals
This results in particular from a “mechanical deportation” to the port of Marseilles because “Le Havre may have been a victim of its own success at one time, and therefore the criminal organizations had to try to find other delivery points for narcotics,” analyzed Mr. Vigot.
By way of comparison, “almost ten tonnes of cocaine” were seized by customs at the port of Le Havre in 2022, according to Mr. Vigot. At the national level, nearly 18 tonnes of cocaine were seized by French customs last year, more than 66 tonnes of cannabis and 627 kilos of heroin.
Marseille customs also intercepted nearly 25 tonnes of contraband or counterfeit tobacco (loose tobacco, cigarettes, cigars) as well as almost 500,000 counterfeit items, including 160,000 games or toys for children, “obviously with a safety dimension for young consumers”, noted Mr. Vigot.
On the consumer protection side, “customs in Marseille has been carrying out checks since November 2021 on fruit and vegetables, on containers of food products as well as on products declared as organic”.
Controls which resulted in “quite significant non-conformities”, he detailed: more than 800 tonnes of fruit and vegetables were thus declared non-compliant (following a documentary check or analyzes physical in the laboratory) then destroyed or re-exported, or even brought back into conformity when possible.
